6 Amazing Surgeries That Implanted or Attached Body Parts in the Oddest Places

1

The woman who grew a new ear on her arm

Doctors at Johns Hopkins have successfully grown an ear on a woman's arm. Sherrie Walters, 42, had an ear grown on her arm to replace one removed after developing bassal cell carcinoma in 2008. The illness meant that she had her ear, a piece of her skull and her ear canal removed.

She is now the first person ever to have their ear regrown using cartilage taken from her rib. The team of surgeons, led by Dr. Patrick Byrne, took rib cartilage to shape a new ear, according to Red Orbit. In an experimental procedure, it was placed under the skin and allowed to grow for four months before being transplanted into her head.
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2

The former beauty queen who had her skull temporally attached to her stomach

A former beauty queen was shocked as she awoke to find a portion of her head missing after having a quarter of her skull removed and then stored in her stomach for six weeks after a near-fatal fishing accident. Surgeons removed the rear quarter of Jamie Hilton's skull and placed it in her abdomen, which enabled the bone to remain sterile and nourished while brain swelling from a head injury subsided.

Mrs. Hilton, 36, had won Mrs. Idaho in 2009 and competed in the Mrs. America beauty contests. Mrs Hilton's skull remained in her abdomen for 42 days until it was re-attached in a successful operation and then, three months after her near death experience, she returned home, and is considered a 'walking miracle.'
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3

The little boy who was given ‘devil's horns' implants to remove birth mark

Doctors have treated a young boy with a large birthmark on his face… by implanting horns in his forehead. George Ashman, 5, was born with a bright red blemish on his forehead and his mother Karen, 33, feared he would endure a lifetime of bullying. So when he was four he underwent a surgical procedure to stretch the ‘normal' skin on his forehead so the birthmark could be removed and covered with the new unblemished tissue.

Doctors inserted two tissue expanders under the skin, which gradually inflated so they looked like two perfect devil's horns. After four months the implants were removed and the blemish was cut out, allowing the new skin to be stitched together, leaving just a small Harry Potter-style scar on George's forehead.

During the four months he had the horns, George was subjected to cruel taunts from passers-by.
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4

The teenage boy with cancer who had his leg detached and turned 180 degrees in order to play again

Dugan Smith, after fighting bone cancer, is able to keep up his previously active lifestyle after doctors have managed to reattach his right leg – backwards.

Smith, 13, was diagnosed with bone cancer in 2008 and had to undergo surgery to amputate his knee and thigh. He chose to have “rotation-plasty,” which means his lower leg was turned around and attached to the remainder of his thigh, allowing his ankle to take the place of his knee. There were a number of procedures available, but this was the only one that would allow him to keep his leg. The surgery cut out the middle part of his leg and rotated the bottom half 180 degrees to move it up and reattach it to the blood vessels. It was performed at James Cancer Hospital in Ohio. Less than three years after the amputation surgery, Smith is able to play sports such as baseball and basketball and go skiing.
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5

The little girl who saved her hand by having it grafted to her leg

Ming Li, 9, had her hand severed after a tractor ran over it while she was walking to school in July 2010. Doctors said it was too badly damaged to put back on her arm so they attached it to her right leg. After three months, the hand was reattached to her arm. Dr Hou Jianxi, from the hospital where Ming is being treated in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, said her hand was repairing well and that the blood was flowing normally through her hand.

She was able to move her wrist but will need more operations over the next two years to remove scars and improve its movement, he said.
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6

The man who grew a fingertip on his stomach

Doctors in China saved a man's partially-severed finger - by attaching it to his stomach. Furniture worker Wang Yongjun, 20, cut off the end of his middle finger with an electric saw in an accident at work. Wang, of Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, was rushed to the hospital where doctors had to think fast. Dr Huang Xuesong said the muscle and skin had been cut away from the end of his finger leaving only the bone showing.

Doctors operated and attached Wang's finger to his stomach in the hope that new skin and muscle would grow around it. Dr Huang said the technique was a way of restoring blood circulation to the injured finger so that the body could repair itself. He says the surgery was a complete success and that Wang would have a brand new fingertip - separated from his stomach - within a month.
(Source)